Pen of the Witch
by Kincaid
Summary: Tara Maclay's Diary following Once More, With Feeling


No title yet (any suggestions?)  
Author: Justine  
Rating: PG-13 (vague sex type stuff)  
Notes: Spoilers through Tabula Rasa. This is the first piece I've posted here, comments are greatly appreciated. If I've done something wrong, please let me know. This is a sort of journal from Tara's point of view. Takes place just after Once More With Feeling.  
I don't own these characters, they were invented by a very smart man named Joss Whedon. If the characters were mine, I'd have a much better nightlife.  
  
  
  
  
  
I'm lying here like there's nowhere else to be. I'm lying here like there's   
nowhere else as warm as this. I'm lying here because I'm scared to go.  
Her head rests against my neck and her fingers are spread across my belly.   
It's only almost light outside but I'm still awake. Still awake. I haven't slept in   
what feels like a year even though I know it can't have been more than a few days at   
the most. Sleep is a luxury these days. If I close my eyes, will I wake up the same   
person? Guarantees mean little.   
The light begins to sneak across her face. The simultaneity of her beauty and   
her naivety is nothing short of adorable. I'm in love with her red hair, her fierce   
loyalty, her strength, her smile. The way she looks at me and I know that I am wanted.   
Her warmness is frightening. She is so alive, so hopeful. Trying to make happiness   
wherever she can. She loves me. She wants me happy. She wants me. She wants more of   
me than I have to give, sometimes.   
She's making happy awake noises; like kittens do when they stretch. The blanket is   
sliding down over her breasts and almost I'm completely lost….My hands against her skin,   
gliding, teasing, softly testing the curves and hollows of her. Her throat and her   
shoulders, the valley between her breasts. She's awake, smiling, laughing. I feel like   
I'm going to explode inside but my hands are still moving. I close my eyes so she can't  
see them. If she knows, it's all over and I just need one more day. I say it over and   
over again, just this morning. Just once to remember. I'll never stop aching for her if   
I don't.   
She's kissing me. Her face so close to mine, our breath twinned in this tiny space. The   
skin on her back is twitching in anticipation. As if an electric current runs through us   
both, we're tearing and pulling, kneading and pawing, clumsy as two kids again.   
My hand is caught somewhere warm and soft. She's stretching like a cat, all warmth and   
fluid grace. Sighing, breathing hard into my shoulder, caught in light and motion against   
the morning sun. Suddenly, slack, warm, slick, quiet in my arms. It's heavy here. Desperation   
has the smell of sex.  
  
.....................  
  
We can all see it, but no one really says it. How do you tell someone that she's   
changed so drastically that you can hardly know her anymore? I should have seen it coming.   
There are consequences to every action. The fabric of the world is not made to be tampered   
with. Death is death and resurrection is best left to professionals and novelists. I've been   
through it over and over again every day since it happened. I should never have let it happen.   
In my fantasy I'm smashing the urn, I'm telling Spike. I'm blocking the wheels. A   
waking dream every time I close my eyes. Every time I turn my head, I catch a certain slant   
of light, a certain smell of blood. It's too late now, but I stop her every night from entering   
this nightmare with me. And every morning I give myself to her as a sacrifice. I'm offering my   
body, my heart, if only she'd turn it back, or at least stop making it worse.  
  
.......................  
  
If I ever said it would get better, I was a fool. I was a fool to think that a person   
can be influenced by love alone. I was foolish to believe that I was cherished. I had once   
thought that I was loved. I had once thought that I was worthy of respect. I was a fool. I am   
twice the fool for having allowed things to progress to this sorry state.   
I've waited so long, partly out of fear but moreover out of a kind of self imposed   
blindness. I've wanted to think that I was inviolate. Inviolate because I had love on my side.   
Like in a movie, when the hero cannot be defeated because he has the love of a good woman. I   
knew the rules but they don't work in my world. I believed in a set of laws that don't apply   
in this ugly little town. I don't know how they've stayed here so long. Everything here is so   
horribly fragile and unpredictable. Life is arrested and created and destroyed and altered and   
sucked right out of you like the very blood in your veins. Even the inviolable laws of   
supernature are ignored here.   
I'd leave right now. I've packed my things. I've broken my ties, all but one. It's not   
as clean a break as perhaps I'd prefer, but it's enough for now. I have yet to shed tears but   
they are there. My heart has sort of collapsed in on itself like a broken star. My lungs keep   
forgetting to breathe. My bed is very cold. My hands are empty but my dreams are unmemorable. 


End file.
